overwhelm them. Examples include the saying:

“When Allah speaks revelation, the inhabitants of heaven hear something like a chain being dragged across smooth rock.”

There are also the words of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, after he led them in the dawn prayer at al-Hudaybiyyah:

“Do you know what your Lord said last night?”

Likewise, there is His speaking to Moses and calling to him, as established by the Quran and Sunnah. According to their position, anyone could hear the speech that Moses heard.

Among those of them who adopted philosophy, one finds al-Ghazālī, in Mishkāt al-anwār (The Niche of Lights), allowing something similar for people of spiritual purity and discipline: the inspirations that descend upon their hearts. This is akin to the Prophet’s saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Among the nations before you there were people who were inspired.”

And the saying of Abū al-Dardā’ and ‘Ubādah ibn al-Sāmit:

“The believer’s dream is speech uttered by the Lord in his presence during his sleep.”

They thus make “revelation” and inspiration received while awake or asleep exactly equivalent to Moses hearing Allah’s speech, with no difference between them—except that Moses was the intended recipient of that address, whereas someone else hears what was addressed to another. Then, upon “closer examination,” they revert to pure philosophy, holding that there is no difference whatsoever between Moses and anyone else.

Similarly, these philosophizing allegorical interpreters make removing the “two sandals” a reference to abandoning the two worlds, and “the Mount” an expression for the Active Intellect, along with other such interpretations of